A COVID task force official recently said that the next coronavirus wave is likely to hit the country in another 6 to 8 coming months as a case a new variant of coronavirus is said to be arriving soon. But the officials said that even though the Omicron BA.2 is more infectious than the previously found BA.1 subvariant, it will not cause another rise of COVID-19 wave.
Dr Rajeev Jayadevan the Co-Chairman National IMA COVID Task Force said, as quoted by news agency ANI, “Virus is going to be around. It will come in ups and downs for a very long time. When the next variant comes, there will be a surge. We do not know when that will be, but history says that it can happen once inevitably six to eight months and that is typically how it acts.”
Are we going to witness more COVID peaks in the future?
The expert while explaining this said there can be another coronavirus wave in the next 6 to 8 months.
“Virus is going to be around. It will come in ups and downs for a very long time. When the next variant comes, there will be a surge. We do not know when that will be, but history says that it can happen once inevitably six to eight months and that is typically how it acts,” Co-Chairman National IMA COVID Task Force Dr Rajeev Jayadevan said, as quoted by news agency ANI.
“But until then, we are now in the low phase Omicron. However, what we should remember is this virus is around which means that we must do everything we can to stop it from infecting us,” he added.
Can Omicron cause another COVID surge?
Speaking on the possibility of Omicron BA.2 causing another wave, the coronavirus task force official said BA.2 cannot infect those who have been previously infected by BA.1 sub-variant of COVID-19.
“It will not cause another surge. BA.2 is not capable of infecting people who had BA.1. It’s not a new virus or strain. BA.2 is a sub-lineage of Omicron,” Dr Jayadevan told ANI.
What can be the prominent characteristics of the next variant?
Like Omicron, future variants might also show vaccine immunity properties, Dr Jayadevan said
“For the last two years, it has constantly evolved to increase its fitness, which is its ability to infect more people and to leap past natural immunity and vaccinated immunity,” he said.
“Omicron showed that even vaccine immunity can be easily surpassed by variants and this trend will be expected in the future as new variants arrive. BA.1 and BA.2 both have immune escape ability which means that if you’ve been naturally infected, or if you’ve been vaccinated or both, this virus can still infect us,” he noted, reported by ANI.